[kostas6a3]

Been in transit for 26 days
I knew I should have ordered the express option, but the regular shipping was still 40 euros so I thought it was somewhat speedy. Non-express right now is a long wait. Hoping this week or next I get to check it out!

CONID-19

 

[adeadcrab]

Soekris 1421 in the house.



Will give it a week before comparing to Topping D50 (the Soekris is a lot better, and rightly so at 3.5 the price )

 

[adeadcrab]

Spent a few days listening to it, getting used to it - then I plugged the D50 in and listened to a few tracks.

I listened to 3 tracks:
Daft Punk - Get Lucky
Meshuggah - Bleed
Mars Volta - Son et Lumiere & Drunkship of Lanterns (OK, that's two tracks...)

I used the optical input for both DACs, line out -> preamp -> THX 789 and Focal Elex. DACs were volume matched at -17db for the Soekris and -18 for the D50 (1421 has a hidden -1 to prevent clipping at 0db)

The D50 has a closed-in presentation - it feels like 80% of the music happens in the center image between your eyes in front of you.
The 1421 is more to either side of your head. I think this presentation helps identify different instruments and layering much more easily.

1421 sounds more realistic. Snare drum sounds more textured, the hand claps in 'Get Lucky' sound more lifelike. It sounds cleaner overall. The D50 sounded ... off in comparison. It has that sabre glare in the top end, and a bit of a bass boost. The 1421 just sounds clean, precise, detailed.

It's a shame that the Soekris units don't get more attention here. It seems that for people that want R2R, you pick the Denafrips series, or Audio-gd, or maybe something like Metrum or HoloAudio. I wish Soekris had more of a following because I am so happy with the linear, detailed presentation. I think it looks quite cool too with its foam green casing

 

[robo24]

It's a shame that the Soekris units don't get more attention here. It seems that for people that want R2R, you pick the Denafrips series, or Audio-gd, or maybe something like Metrum or HoloAudio. I wish Soekris had more of a following because I am so happy with the linear, detailed presentation. I think it looks quite cool too with its foam green casing

Yeah I got an Ares 1 at the same time I got the 1421. The Ares was slightly muddy in comparison. What made it most obvious was lovely acoustic guitar in a song coming from a bit far out on the left and right but pretty distinct got blended front and center and lost with the Ares. If he eventually comes up with something even higher end that is a DAC only and balanced, I'd buy it. Of the handful of DACs I've had, it's the only one close to the Hugo 2 for me, which one would hope for double the price.

 

[adeadcrab]

I'm just going to get some RCA splitters, send the 1421 line out signal to two different amps!

@soekris might be coming up with something, nobody really knows... I'm happy enough with the 1421 as DAC-only and just ignoring the headphone out.

 

[rkw]

It seems that for people that want R2R, you pick the Denafrips series, or Audio-gd, or maybe something like Metrum or HoloAudio.

Schiit Multibit is R2R.

I have the dac1541 (balanced version of dac1421) and like it a lot. However I don't have much experience comparing between DACs.

 

[adeadcrab]

modi multibit uses Analog Devices AD5547 DAC chip - the gungnir and yggy use medical grade chips. I'm not sure if any Schiit product has a ladder DAC design

 

[rkw]

modi multibit uses Analog Devices AD5547 DAC chip - the gungnir and yggy use medical grade chips. I'm not sure if any Schiit product has a ladder DAC design

Schiit implements R2R on integrated circuit rather than discrete components. Mike Moffat (@Baldr) discusses it here:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/what-a-long-strange-trip-its-been-robert-hunter.784471/post-14334167​

Now I shall address the discrete vs. monolithic (integrated circuit) DAC. Why do I use monolithics? Quite simple; it is because I can provide a much higher value scalable multibit solution than I can with discrete DACs. Now DACs have two critical sections – the digital section which routes the proper bits to the proper switches – the switches which switch the appropriate resistor in the network. There is also an electronic section which interfaces the switched resistor to the outside world which has little effect on the accuracy of the DAC if properly designed for the network. The tolerance of the resistor and its value shift with temperature are critical to the parts per million in a 20 bit system. Here are some advantages of monolithic DACs. The ladder/R2R resistors are properly designed/trimmed for their bit width, providing greater accuracy than some random purchase of resistors and switches in discrete DACs. Only in a monolith are all resistors are on the same die so their temperature variations track, resistor to resistor. This all contributes to the value metric favoring monolithic DACs mentioned above.​

 

[adeadcrab]

This is the first line of that post -

" So this post is about a two subsets of multibit D/A converters. The first would be those (like Schiit) who utilize integrated circuit DAC chips, and the second would be discrete DACs made from discrete resistors, switches, and logic audio data interfaces. "

What I see is that Schiit use DAC chips, and not resistor 2 resistor ladder designs.

Regardless this is off-topic from the Soekris sign-magnitude DACs. I just swapped to a warm opamp in my preamp and something just clicked between the 1421, THX 789 and Elex - the Elex likes that little bit of warmth - because the Soekris wasn't adding any warmth!

 

[kostas6a3]

I'm waiting for one in the next few days. It is located on the road. I heard one (board 1101 with 2-3 separate linear power supplies and other upgrades) and it played great. I hope I made the right choice and that the sound I heard is approaching.

 

[adeadcrab]

@kostas6a3 what DAC do you have at the moment? I wasn't wowed at first but that changed quickly. Going back to the Topping D50 to review was very brief this morning

 

[kostas6a3]

@adeadcrab I have the Audiolab M-DAC+.

 

[rkw]

What I see is that Schiit use DAC chips, and not resistor 2 resistor ladder designs.

This is off-topic, but I'll leave this final comment.

A DAC chip can be either delta-sigma or R2R. R2R is a circuit design. It can be implemented on an integrated chip or as discrete components.
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/what-exactly-is-an-r2r-dac/22735

 

[adeadcrab]

Fair enough - thanks for the insight!

 

[kostas6a3]

I received it on Monday in 1421 to replace the Audiolab MDAC +. After 50 hours playing the differences, for me, are huge. Cleaner sound with more power. This drives the Focal Solo 6be comfortably without the need for a preamplifier. It also drives all my headphones (Grado RS1e, Amiron, AKG K701 comfortably, even the HiFIMAN HE560 which I find difficult (90db/45Ω). I'm excited about my purchase.
The tests continue .....